[This paper was presented at the 2003 Kathmandu `Agenda for Transformation'conference and slightly amended after King Gyanendra's February 2005 takeover. Although in some respects overtaken by subsequent events, in particular the form of the compromise between Maoists and the constitutional political parties that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the emrgence of ethnic issues as a central issue in domestic politics, some of the general comments may still be valid. The essay may also be downloaded as a Word file from the button at the bottom of the page. It is still hoped that the full conference proceedings will be published in Kathmandu by Himal Books]

Introduction

The literal meaning of `democracy' is
`rule by the people', or, in other words, a political system in which ultimate authority
is shared equally by all members of the community. In Nepal as
elsewhere such a system is widely endorsed as a desirable state of affairs but
there is no precise, shared understanding of what it implies in practice. In Nepal, even more than in most other
places, there is also a sense of deep disillusionment with what a system
describing itself as democratic has actually achieved. This paper aims to look briefly at the
problem of definition , then to examine some of the reasons for disillusionment
since the heady days of 1990, and finally to make some tentative suggestions on
how the system could be made more responsive to the needs and aspirations of
the Nepalese people as a whole. My perspective is limited by the fact that I have never lived
or worked for an extended period in the countryside where the majority of the
population live. I have to rely on the reports of those who do have rural
experience, on my own experience of life in the Kathmandu Valley,
on discussions with politicians, journalists and academics and on the study of
the documents produced by such people.
Mine is thus one view from the centre but it may perhaps complement
contributions from others with deeper knowledge of particular sections of rural
Nepal.

Models
of democracy

At its loosest, `democratic’ is virtually
a synonym for `fair’ or `reasonable.’
Some years before the end of British rule in Hong Kong, a Malaysian
Chinese who had recently moved to the colony surprised me by saying how much
more democratic her new home was than her old one. Malaysia, of course, had throughout
her lifetime had a government chosen by universal suffrage. In contrast, Hong Kong’s governor was simply a British appointee and
even today only a few hundred members of an electoral college have a say in the
choice of Chief Executive. She explained, however, that tolerance of criticism
of the authorities was greater in Hong Kong and that in Malaysia ethnic Chinese
felt discriminated against by `affirmative action’ policies to aid the majority
Malay population. The same facts would probably be very differently interpreted
by a Malay beneficiary of UMNO’s policies, but the key point is the confusion
which easily occurs between democracy as a form of government and the positive
results which are expected to flow from it.[1]

If
the focus is returned clearly to the mechanism for making political decisions,
three main operational definitions of `democracy’ seem to be available. The
first, which dominates mainstream political thinking in Western democracies, is
the pluralist one, under which everyone is legally free to advance their own
opinions and competition for support between different political parties
aggregates the many conflicting interests, much as the free market aggregates
preferences in the economic sphere.

Critics on the radical Left do not always
reject this conception completely but argue it cannot be true `rule by the
people’ unless everyone is at the same starting line:

In a parliamentary democracy … you don’t
redistribute the property, you just advocate free competition. Free competition
among unequals is naturally in favour of the more powerful ones. When we
perform this new democratic revolution we will immediately redistribute
property. We will confiscate all landed property and redistribute the wealth
among the poor. The political institutions may be the same. We believe in
political freedom. We will have elections, but the elections so far have been
dominated by money.[2]

Baburam Bhattarai’s argument (advanced
some years before the start of the `People’s War’) has some force but it
ignores the fact that democracies in Western countries do in fact redistribute
wealth on quite a large-scale (more so, of course, in most European countries
than in the U.S.A.) and that, even where considerable economic inequality
exists, the dependence of wealthy contenders for power on the votes of their
fellow citizens places a powerful weapon in the latter’s hands. More
fundamentally, Bhattarai’s critique also ignores the reality that in any large
and complex society, where not all decisions can be taken directly by the whole
citizen body, power and influence are bound to be unevenly distributed. A
successful revolution on the lines he described would inevitably leave those in
commanding position within the revolutionary party and army in a stronger
position than ordinary citizens, even if (as has generally not happened after Marxist-inspired revolutions) they were willing
to allow their opponents freedom to organise politically. Inequalities would not have been eliminated
but they would be based more upon `raw’
politico-military power and less on power mediated through money.[3] Whatever the precise basis of the
power-holders’ advantage, however, full freedom of political organisation and
free elections opens up the possibility of significant change, since although
those defending the status quo are able to delay the erosion of their
privileges they cannot postpone it
indefinitely. A good illustration of the process is provided by the slow
decline of upper-caste dominance in north India since universal suffrage was
introduced in the early 1950s. Democracy
on these lines is not a utopian solution and is unlikely to produce instant
transformation but, for units on the scale of present-day states, it does
provide a framework within which change may be sought..

A
second model of democracy, contrasting with both capitalist and Marxist
versions of the pluralist ones, is a system under which everyone taking an
active part in the decisions affecting their own life through discussion, with
voting as a last resort if consensus cannot be achieved. For direct democracy
of this type a necessary (though not a sufficient) condition is that the units
involved should be small, face-to-face communities, and thus its advocates normally
also stress decentralisation and local autonomy. On the assumption that some degree of
centralisation is desirable, the direct democracy model cannot really replace
the pluralist version but it can be applied at lower levels within a larger
unit. In the Nepalese context it is most obviously applicable at settlement level,
and particularly to ethnically homogeneous settlements where traditional
decision-making procedures may in some ways approximate to it. Even in multi-caste/multi-ethnic villages,
there appears to have been a preference for consensual decision-making, subsequently
superseded by the requirements of the Panchayat system and even more by those
of multi-party democracy.[4] The traditional system (even supposing we are
justified of seeing this as a single system),was
not of course as harmonious as sometimes supposed, since, even without the
conflicts of interest between landlord and tenant or creditor and debtor,
inter-personal conflicts could prove highly disruptive.[5] One also has to beware of a seeming
consensual decision which really only reflects the fact that a discontented
minority feels unsafe in openly challenging the wishes of a dominant faction.
Nevertheless, and despite misuse of `traditional’ structures as a buttress for
royal autocracy before 1990, practice in rural Nepal has at its best provided a
relatively conflict-free method of reaching decisions and this constitutes a
potentially valuable resource.

There remains a third model, which lacks
logical coherence but retains a powerful grip on the imagination of many
people. This seeks to resolve the practical difficulties outlined above by
conceiving of `the people’ as if they were an entity with a single will and
purpose. Such a notion figures in both liberal and Marxist rhetoric of
democracy and arguably has some justification when a very large proportion of a
population is united in, and overwhelmingly focussed on, a single cause, as was
the case in the Kathmandu
Valley at the climax of
the janandolan. In ordinary times,
however, `the people’ is a conglomeration of individuals and groups, boundaries
between them shifting over time and from issue to issue. The danger then is that the illusion of a
single popular will is sustained by substituting for the fractious reality the
policy of a smaller group, most typically a political party governing under a
one-party system. Democracy then becomes
simply rule by the party with constant invocation of the name of `the People’,
just as a theocracy is rule by a priesthood with constant invocation of the
name of God.[6] Although now Nepalese across the political
spectrum (including, at least
intermittently, the Maoists) usually express commitment to a pluralist
conception of democracy, the concept of a single popular will and the unique
qualification of one’s own political faction to interpret it, still persists
particularly on the Nepalese Left. Thus, it has often been suggested that under
naulo janbad there might be a
plurality of parties but that `reactionaries’ would be denied freedom to
organise, with `the people’ deciding who the `reactionaries’ were. This view
was widely held within the UML in the early nineties, and is still held by
C.P.Mainali, long a dissident within the party but now leading his own splinter
group.[7] It also probably remains strong in the ranks
of more radical groups such as the Unity Centre and Masal, now grouped together
in the People’s Front and co-operating tactically with other parliamentary
parties. It is certainly also the
preference of the Maoists, who broke away from the Unity Centre in 1994, though
they may in the end feel obliged to work within a multi-party framework rather
than return to civil war.[8]

Nepalese
democracy

The second and third models of democracy
outlined above influence the thinking of many in Nepal, but at national level the
country’s experience since 1990 has been of the first version. Disillusionment
with the results grew throughout the 1990s and, since
the royal take-over in October 2002, the system has been effectively in a coma.
Argument still continues over whether it should be resuscitated or declared
dead and a completely new beginning made but, after Gyanendra’s even more
complete assumption of power in February 2005 and suspension of freedom of
speech and assembly, a fresh start looks the more likely eventual outcome. The reasons for disappointment with the
working of the 1990 constitution stem partly from limitations inherent in the
system itself, but more particularly from problems which afflict democracy in
many developing countries and, finally, to the ambiguity over the control of
state power resulting from the events of 1990-91.

At the most general level, pluralist
democracies even when operating most successfully inevitably produce some
discontent because of the gap between the aspirations bound up with democracy
as a slogan and the actual results. Cynicism about politics and politicians is
the norm even in countries where democratic institutions are fully secure and
the standard of living far higher than in Nepal. The definition of
`politician’ produced by Manjushree Thapa some years ago - `the epitome of all
that’s worst about Nepal’ – brings to mind the American poet e.e.cummings’
offering in the 1920s: `A politician is an arse upon which everything has sat
except a man.’ Disenchantment in Nepal has been
worse because of the exhilaration which attended the end of the Panchayat
system and perhaps also because of special features of the South Asian attitude
towards power and those who seek it. It has been said of India, but applies to
the wider region also, that `authority
is acceptable, but to struggle for a position of authority is not’[9], and that
`authority … appears to be subject to much more abusive criticism and much more
effusive adulation than one is accustomed to elsewhere’.[10] The contrast between the rhetoric of
self-sacrifice and family-like solidarity, which politicians themselves
frequently espouse, and the reality of political competition is deeply felt.
The longing for an authority figure able to cut through and transcend the
struggle undoubtedly explains why many ordinary citizens
in the Kathmandu Valley appeared to welcome Gyanendra’s
action against party politicians in 2002 and 2005 and, arguably, is also part
of the appeal of the Maoists with their personality cult of Prachanda.

In terms of actual
results between 1990 and 2002, Nepalese democracy was a hybrid similar to that found in many developing
countries, including much of Latin America and South-East
Asia. It combined many of the
positive features found in long-established democracies but these co-existed with grave failings even by the far-from-perfect
standards of Western Europe or North America,
let alone the ideal standards democracies everywhere aspire to.

The positive achievements were considerable,
especially if one compares Nepal
since 1990 with outright autocracies such as North
Korea or with countries like Burma
or Algeria
which permitted free elections but then refused to abide by the results.
Although this right of political association was slightly restricted by a
constitutional ban on parties with communal or secessionist objectives, parties
of this kind were in fact allowed to operate so
long as those objectives were not made too obvious by their constitutions or
insignia. There were also genuine elections, even if abuses of the kind to be
discussed below did occur. The electoral
process was clearly not a sham since a party in
power could be voted out, as in fact happened to
Congress in 1994 and would have happened again in 1999 had the UML not
obligingly split in 1998. Supporting evidence is provided by opinion poll data
which was normally not too far out of line with results of the election
themselves and by the general trend of a gradual drift to the Left, which would
have been more pronounced if the Maoists had not split from the United People’s
Front in 1994 and moved outside the system (see Table). Whatever cheating occurred affected the
results at the margins and would not have prevented a UML-led Left-wing
government coming to power had the Leftist parties managed to work together.

In addition, the period after1990 saw the development of a flourishing `civil society’
with expansion of the media and freedom to express opinions across the
political spectrum. This was curtailed to some extent after the Maoists’
decision to attack the army in November triggered the first imposition of a
state of emergency. However, even before the emergency was allowed to lapse,
the braver sections of the media (including, of course, both HIMAL SOUTH ASIAN
and Himal Khabar Patrika) continued
to print stories that were embarrassing to the authorities.[12]

One can finally note the proliferation of interest- and concern-groups
of all kinds. There is considerable cynicism amongst Nepalese intellectuals
concerning the role of the multitude of NGOs, many of which are really private
businesses rather than philanthropic or campaigning organisations.[13] Nevertheless. many of their critics have acknowledged that
they can sometimes promote positive changes. One particularly effective
organisation has been BASE, whose influence at grassoots level has recently
made them a target of the Maoists and whose work
promoting literacy and political awareness amongst the western Tharus is
particularly well-known. Their achievement in bringing about the formal
abolition of kamaiya status was
diminished by the government’s failure to make proper provision for the ex-kamaiyas
but this was nonetheless a positive step and their result in the adult
literacy field have been very impressive. BASE is among a number of NGOs
demonstrating that it is not impossible
to combine access to donor funds and a social conscience.[14]

Politics
as organised crime?

Offsetting these achievements, however, and distorting the electoral
process were widespread abuses, often involving outright criminality. Intimidation, `booth capturing’ and
ballot-rigging undoubtedly occurred and were
highlighted by their depiction in Manjusree Thapa’s novel The Tutor of History. Just how extensive these abuses are is, of
course, difficult to establish. As already argued, they do not totally
invalidate Nepalese elections and it is in any case the defeated parties,
naturally anxious to explain away their defeat, who were the most frequent
source of complaints. The scope for
abuse was less in urban centres where the
scrutiny of the media and `civil society’ is at its most intense. One enduring
image from the 1999 election in Kathmandu is a photograph of the man who formed
the post-election government, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, being turned away from
a polling station in Kathmandu because he had
mislaid his identity card. Such scrupulous observance of the regulations was often absent in remoter areas and it is generally
accepted that wherever a particular party had a preponderance of activists it
would try to prevent opponents from exercising their rights.[15] A
party in government was in the best position to
exercise improper influence because it could
make use of the administration and the police in addition to its own
cadres. It was alleged in 1994, for
example, that the manipulation of recounts had derived the UML of a clear
majority in 18 constituencies.[16] It is also widely believed that the police
were improperly used against ULF (Bhattarai) cadres in Rolpa in late 1995, some
months before they launched the `People’s War’ in February 1996.[17] Opposition groups, however, also certainly
resorted to intimidation when they could get away with it, involving both parties’ own long-term activists and sometimes
also hired goondas, whose role had
long been important in areas across the Nepal’s southern border. The need to
pay for such support in turn increased parties’ appetite for `black money’,
even if individual politicians could resist the temptation to enrich themselves
personally.[18]

Amongst many
possible examples, there were
frequent reports of malpractice by UML workers in M.K.Nepal’s Rautahat
constituency and violence erupted between
factions within the UML’s own ranks on the eve of the 1998 split. Also, in 1991
Masal activists in Pyuthan barred Girija Koirala from campaigning in the
district as well as preventing an NGO from
carrying out an American-financed voter education project.[19] The
Maoists’ turning their activists into a military force is in a way only an
extreme manifestation of a tendency already present within the system. Governments abusing their powers and the Maoists resorting to
armed rebellion bear the major responsibility but everyone on the political
stage is to a certain extent the victim of a prevailing culture of abuse: if
everyone believes the other side will not abide by the rules then nobody has an
incentive to play fair themselves.

Politics as gang warfare is a reversion to the process by which states
themselves most likely emerged.[20]

Within industrialised, democratic states the process has been largely
superseded by rule-governed competition, even though the whole structure is
underpinned by the state’s own monopoly of physical coercion and players may
still enjoy advantages from their ancestors’ success at banditry. However, the law of the jungle still largely
prevails in the international arena and to an extent within countries like
Nepal with a weak and contested state structure.

Whilst operating in some ways as private armies, political parties can
also absorb mutually-hostile local factions and in the process intensify that
hostility. In the 1991 election, it was
noted that competition between national parties could easily mesh with
factional politics within villages, as one group might adhere to a particular
party to obtain support against a local rival.[21] This process
was observed in at least one village in
the Kham Magar area, with one clan supporting
Congress and the other the UPF/Maoists.
In the context of the `People’s War’, a dispute which might have been
previously resolved within the village might escalate into the assassination of
a rival as a `class enemy.’[22] Whilst there has naturally been a tendency
for richer individuals to gravitate to right-wing and poorer ones to left-wing
parties, the rivalries involved need not always have been of a purely class
nature, a problem which Chinese Communists had encountered long before in an
extreme form:

: .. the deep-rooted
divisions within the countryside meant that winning friends automatically risked
acquiring enemies. The Chinese communists who established their rural Soviet
areas in 1927-28 found, to their unjustified surprise, that converting one
clan-dominated village helped to establish a network of `red villages’ based on connected clans, but also
involved them in war against their traditional enemies, who formed a similar
network of `black villages.’ `In some cases,’ they complained, `the class
struggle was transformed into the fight of one village against another. There
are cases where our troops had to besiege and destroy entire villages.’ [23]

Patronage and corruption
The politics of intimidation were, as has already been seen, linked with the
politics of patronage and corruption. The trading of political support for
favours or protection will occur to some extent in any political system but is
particularly pervasive in Third World polities. Both cadres and voters
frequently sought immediate favours for themselves or their friends and
relations in return for their support rather than opting for the party whose
blueprint for the future of Nepalese society most appealed to them. Examples
were villagers who sold their votes, the bus
conductor who got his job through Congress connections and feared he would lose
it when UML came to power, or the packing of the state intelligence services
with cadres who did little other than draw their pay.[24] Here again, the Maoists can be seen as a good
example of the system in operation, as well as a reaction against it: their
ranks certainly include people motivated by ideology or a desire for revenge
against state excesses, but membership of the Lal Sena also ensures a regular
income.[25]

Among those who reach the highest levels
the patronage game became of over-riding importance. The intensity of
competition for ministerial office was partly the result of the increased
opportunities for dispensing patronage that it provided, whilst even ordinary
M.P.s .were able to play the game to some degree: under a system introduced by the 1994-95 UML
government, they .were each given control of a large block grant to spend as
they saw fit on local development projects.
Parties also offered large financial inducements to individual M.P.s to
tempt them into changing sides. Particularly notorious was the decision of two
Congress M.P.s to absent themselves from parliament when a vote of
no-confidence was brought against Sher Bahadur Deuba’s government in early
1997.

The patronage system is, of course, intimately linked to the problem of
corruption. Politicians channeling favours to their supporters or collecting
the funds to do so through `donations’ from private businessmen were acting in
ways which both the law and much Nepalese public opinion regard as corrupt,
even if some of these transactions might have been regarded as part of normal
social practice in previous generations.
The exact scale of abuses of this kind at the
apex of the system is difficult to determine, as is the extent to which
corruption, already a much talked-about problem in the Panchayat years,[26]
increased under the multi-party regime.
Tougher anti-corruption laws were enacted under the 2001-2002 Deuba
government, and action was taken against a number of former ministers. Even more radical action against corruption
is expected from the Royal Commission set up after Gyanendra took over direct
control of the administration in February 2005.
However, there were accusations that the selection of targets after
Gyanendra’s )ctober 2002 `semi-coup’ was politically-motivated and, given the
sweeping powers entrusted to the new commission, there are fears that abuses
will increase in future.

Corruption has long
affected day-to-day interaction between members of the
public and the administration .In a 2003 survey
by the Nepal chapter of Transparency International, respondents reported having to pay bribes in
48% of transactions with the police and the courts and 25% of those with
education, electricity and tax offices. A perception that the police were
willing to side in disputes with the faction which offered them the largest
bribes, together with their reputation for brutality, eased the task of Maoist
insurgents in driving them out of many areas of the hills.[27]

Whether out of intimidation or in
expectation of benefits, the ordinary voter may often be concerned to predict
the outcome rather than to help determine it: the key consideration is to be on
the right side of those in power. A desire to go with the winner can be a
factor in democracies anywhere, but in a society like Nepal’s the band-wagon
effect is stronger. Local elections, for
example are often seen by voters in the United Kingdom as an opportunity to
register a protest against the government just as mid-term Congressional
elections are likely to produce a swing against the party controlling the White
House. In contrast, Nepalese local
elections produced comfortable majorities for the party in power at the centre,
viz. Congress in 1992 and the UML in 1997.[28] Improper influence on the conduct of the
elections will have been part of the explanation, and also the Maoists’
campaign of intimidation against Congress candidates in 1997, but the desire to
have better access to resources under control of the national government was of
great importance.

Keen awareness of the `Back the Winner’ factor also appears to have been a key element in stances currently taken on
the constituent assembly issue. In
principle, elections to a constituent assembly, if not preceded by the kind of
redistributionary measures Baburam Bhattarai called for in his 1990 interview
(p.2 ), might be just as likely as parliamentary elections to go in favour of
`reactionary forces’ , as some Left-wing commentators pointed out.[29] The Maoists’ insistence on this issue partly
reflects the fact that it was an original objective of the 1950/51 movement
against the Ranas, but at the present moment it is the demand’s symbolic value
that is probably more important. Simply because the Maoists’ have been
demanding it for so long, securing it would be a signal to the country that
they were now setting the agenda. For precisely the same reason, the two major
parties were unhappy with the idea and wished to preserve the constitutional
order achieved through the 1990 people’s movement that they themselves had
headed.[30] It is only after
the royal takeover and the setting aside of that order that a significant
numbers of people within the UML and Congress warmed to the constituent
assembly proposal and even now (March 2005), with the
younger generation of even Congress
activists increasingly tending to republicanism, much sentiment in the two parties
still probably remains opposed.[31] The same logic of needing to be seen to be in
control of events would most likely see the king attempt to have the monarchy
itself omitted from the scope of the constituent assembly’s deliberations.

Ethnic and caste issues

The paradoxical fact about ethnic and
caste identity in Nepal is that it is of great importance in day-to-day
interactions between individuals but that, as an issue in national politics it
has generally been much less important. This is in the first place because the
sheer number of different groups in Nepal makes co-operation across ethnic and
caste boundaries vital for effective action at almost any level. Secondly,
especially before the advent of mass literacy, villagers have naturally seen
themselves as members of a face-to-face, localised group rather than of one
dispersed over the whole country: the ethnic community (as portrayed in census
statistics) is as much an imagined community as the nation itself. Against this background, during the Panchayat
era representatives of different groups predominant in a particular area were
frequently co-opted into the system but they were content to accept patronage
and control from the national, high-caste (and particularly Thakuri) elite
centred round the monarchy, The pattern
to some extent perpetuated that which had existed before 1950.

Political mobilisation on the basis of
ethnicity was not entirely absent, however.
Limbu solidarity, partly cause and partly result of the long survival of
kipat tenure in their area of the
eastern hills, has been a significant factor throughout most of Nepal’s history
as a unified state. Modern-style ethnic
activism arguably emerged in embryonic form shortly before the end of the Rana
regime with the establishment of the Tharu Welfare Society in 1950, or even
earlier with stirrings of Newar cultural assertiveness in the 1920s. Such
activities were curtailed under the Panchayat system but began reviving around
the time of the 1980 referendum and, after introduction of direct elections to
the Rastriya Panchayat, the need for candidates to appeal to a mass electorate
arguably made ethnic (and also caste) considerations more salient .[32] At the same time, whilst the Parbatiya and
Newar upper castes remained dominant in Panchayat politics, increased efforts
were made to co-opt members of other groups and though was largely still
confined to lower levels there were also some more senior appointments.[33]

With the return of
fully competitive politics in 1990, the pattern of co-option was continued,
particularly at the grassroots level in
the political parties.[34] However, freedom of organisation and the fact
that there was no single centre of power
(the palace) as a source of patronage encouraged ethnic activists to
become more assertive. In particular, demands for affirmative action policies
(reservations)[35] and for the use of minority
mother tongues become increasingly
insistent and have, at least in principle, won a degree of acceptance
across the political spectrum: `positive discrimination’ to redress the
under-representation of the janjati (as
well as of women and Dalits) was one of the general promises made by
Gyanendra’s royalist cabinet in February 2005, and, unlike the takeover itself,
it was non-controversial.

The
degree of under-representation differs greatly from group to group.and
incorporation has generally gone furthest with non-Parbatiyas longest
associated with the Shah dynasty (viz. Gurungs and Magars). In contrast the
Tamangs, the group with the highest figure for mother tongue retention of any
of the non-Parbatiya hill groups, remain particularly marginalised.[36] The same applies to the Kham Magars
(linguistically distinct and less assimilated than the southern Magars) whose
territory forms part of the Maoist heartland and who provided many of the
rank-and-file fighters in the early days of the insurgency.

Although their problems have, at least until recently, received
relatively little attention, the Dalits, who come at the bottom of the
traditional hierarchy as codified in the 1854 Muluki Ain, are still the group
most strongly discriminated against. It is significant that janajati representation in parliament
has not been grossly out of line with the janajati
proportion in the total population, whereas the 1999 House of
Representatives contained no Dalits at all.[37] Attempts to mobilise Dalits to improve their
condition also date back to late Rana times, with the advancement by some
members of the Bishwakarma section of the Kami
caste, largest of the untouchable groups, of a claim to tagadhari
status. However, their action was viewed
with suspicion by members of other untouchable castes and a feeling that the Bishwakarmas are pursuing
a hegemonic agenda of their own has continued to complicate efforts to create a
united Dalit movement.[38] The tendency for Dalit organisations to
splinter and to accept patronage (and some degree of control) from one of the
political parties has also been a factor in this.[39]

In the Western hills, the
most backward part of the country, Dalits are traditionally known as Doms and
make up 38% of the population.[40] In
much of this area, there are virtually no non-Parbatiya groups and the cleavage
between the Doms and the `pure’ Parbatiya castes is a particularly stark
one. The Deuba government’s call in 2001
for the Dalits’ admittance to temples had some success in the east but
reportedly met with strong resistance in the far western districts, from which
Deuba himself comes.[41] Ten years previously, a Congress candidate in
the Bhajang constituency had readily admitted to exploiting high-caste feeling
against them by branding his Communist opponents `the party of Doms’. The result will presumably have been to
reinforce the Doms’ own Leftist allegiance and over the country as a whole they
appear particularly responsive to Communism in general and to the Maoists in
particular.

In the Dalits’ case, of
course, caste status coincides closely with economic status: at village level
they are often the poorest as well as the lowest in ritual status. [42] Controversies over the relative importance of
class or ethnic differences sometimes obscure the point that it is when the two
sets of cleavage overlap that the potential for conflict is often particularly
high. Thus tensions between Tharus and
Parbatiyas have been particularly high in the Dang area, where tenants are
normally Tharu and landlords, whilst the violence in the old `West No.1’ district in 1960 involved poor Tamangs
against Parbatiya landlords or money-lenders.

It is still fair to say, however, that, at least for the
moment, the ethnic aspect is not the central one because of the integration
of local bocks into larger organisations
that have a multi-caste and multi-ethnic make-up. Striking instances
of this are provided by both the government and the
Maoists. Tagadharis are at the apex in
both cases: the king and the Shaha-Rana aristocracy around him versus the
Brahmans Pushpa Kumar Dahal (`Prachanda’) and Baburam Bhattarai. At the same
time there are. ethnic minority members in important support roles, notably (at the time of the 2003 ceasefire) the government
negotiator, Narayan Singh Pun, and his fellow Magar,, the Maoist military
strategist Ram Bahadur Thapa (`Badal’).[43] The
rank-and-file in both the army and the Maoists’ guerilla force are a mixture of
different castes, with members of the same family sometimes on opposing sides.[44] There still remain, of course, the two most
obvious lines of cleavage between the Parbatiyas and the Tibeto-Burman groups
in the hills and between hillmen generally and the tarai populations of recent
Indian origin, but the heterogeneity of the groups concerned has prevented any
real coalescence. The more important dividing
line is an economic one, with many of the better-off in the hills still being
the descendants of the families favoured by Kathmandu since the foundation of
the state. Such families tend to be from the higher castes but this is
certainly not exclusively so and while economic divisions may correspond
closely in some local areas with ethnic ones, this is not so over the country
as a whole. The same fundamental problems are affecting all groups to a greater
or lesser degree: increasing population; a limited and unevenly distributed
resource base; competition from more efficient producers outside the
country; and growing numbers of young
people educated sufficiently to aspire to something beyond a marginal existence
on the land but not able to find employment meeting those aspirations.

The legacy of 1990

All of
the above factors could be paralleled in many other countries, or (as far as
ethnic and caste factors are concerned) with other parts of South Asia. In
Nepal they are complicated by the balance of power that emerged from the 1990 janandolan. Whilst the civil
administration (including the police) was under the control of the elected
government, the army’s constitutional position was ambiguous. It was formally
under the command of the king, who was supposed to act in military matters on the
recommendation of the National Defence Council, consisting of the prime
minister, the defence minister (a portfolio normally retained by the prime
minister) and the army’s own chief of staff. In practice, senior army officers
continued to look to the palace, as they had done before 1990.[45] Any group organising armed resistance to the
civil administration could therefore hope to exploit this situation as did
indeed happen with the Maoist revolt.[46]

Opinions differ on how far Birendra (or his advisors) deliberately
engineered this situation during negotiations over the drafting of the
constitution, but both royal control of the army and
the palace’s ability to exercise influence in other ways would have mattered less had the political parties
been able to forge a broader consensus on the rules of the game. In fact, even
groups who were in principal committed to the eventual establishment of a
republic were willing to make tactical use of the monarchy and nobody wanted
the king’s power to disappear unless there was a probability that they
themselves would be the one’s to fill the resulting power vacuum. Thus the element of discretion retained by
the king in deciding whether to grant a prime minister’s request for the dissolution
of parliament was apparently accepted by the UML during the drafting stage
because they correctly anticipated that Congress would win the first general
election. When Koirala did obtain a dissolution in 1994, many parties across
the spectrum called for his caretaker administration to be replaced by a
multi-party government. Baburam
Bhattarai’s section of the Sanyukta Jana Morcha refused to back the demand,
arguing that this would give the monarchy a chance to become actively involved
in politics once more. Ironically, the Maoists themselves began calling for a
multi-party government and their own violent campaign was the single most
important factor in bringing the monarchy back to the centre of the political
stage.

One
additional legacy of the janandolan was to boost the attraction of extra-systemic protest.
If mobilising crowds on the street has once
forced political change, people in general (and political activists in
particular) will be more ready to use similar tactics again rather than revert
to the less dramatic channels of constitutional politics. This was clearly seen in the results of a
1991 opinion poll, which showed much greater tolerance of different means of
`direct action’ than in western democracies, and even a significant minority
prepared to countenance armed revolt.[47] Once again the Maoists have provided an
extreme example of a general tendency, whilst the constant resort to bands and similar types of agitation by
many factions, particularly on the Left, is another manifestation of it. There were, of course, always plenty of
unemployed people available to act as `enforcers’, even where, as was certainly
the case in the Kathmandu Valley, there was little enthusiasm for the protests
among the general population. Relief at
the curtailing of such activities partly explains why many people in the Valley
initially welcomed Gyanendra’s state of
emergency in February 2005.

Another contributor to this volume, has argued
that the band is a reasonable way of putting pressure on a
generally unresponsive government .[48] It is true that the right to protest publicly
s an important one and that some disruption has to be accepted as the price for
this. However, in Nepal’s case, the cost to society as a whole have clearly
outweighed the benefits (though, like corruption, it might bring benefits to
particular individuals or groups) and
such protests have been particularly reprehensible because of the way they
involve coercion of those not wishing to take part: the minority of those who
stayed off the roads or closed their
place of business did so out of fear of the organisers’ retaliation, not out of
sympathy with the protest. Even without taking into account the Maoist
`blockades’ now periodically afflicting much of the country, the resort to
intimidation by so many different groups made it clear that it was becoming more and
more entrenched as part of the country’s political culture. The
pogrom organised by Hindu extremists
after the murder of Nepalese migrant workers Iraq Nepalese workers in
Iraq resulted partly from what Pradeep Giri’s termed the `culture of
impunity’ generated in the course of
earlier protests.

What is to be done?
Surveying the problems that beset the
Nepalese state is a relatively easy task. Suggesting immediately applicable
remedies is considerably more difficult and I certainly do not claim to have
any magic formula to offer. General
suggestions such as a greater spirit of co-operation and compromise are valid
but difficult to translate into concrete actions that can be taken at once by
particular actors. What follows is a rather miscellaneous list but one or two
of the points raised may evoke some response.[49]

It is
often suggested that the only true solution to Nepal’s political malaise is the
improvement of social and economic conditions and, in the long-term, this is
true. The immediate need, however, is for a political framework within which
social and economic needs can be addressed.
Since spontaneous co-operation cannot do the job alone, the provision of
such a framework is in the first place the responsibility of the state, which
should be strong enough to enforce the rules but also willing to abide by them
itself. To some extent there has to be a trade-off between the two objectives –
the only way to be totally certain that the police or army never abuse their
power is not to have any police or army at all – but in Nepal, as in many other
countries, the state too often fails on both counts. The state needs both to be strengthened to
resist extra-constitutional challenges – in particular armed rebellion – but
also to become more responsive to demands made through ordinary political
process. Revision of the constitution itself, whether or not by means of a
constituent assembly, may be necessary but rather more important will be the
determination of a sufficient number of people to abide by the rule of law.

Generating such a consensus has been made even more difficult
- yet also more urgent –since Gyanendra’s assumption of total political control
and his crack-down even on peaceful dissent. Power in the urban areas now rests
entirely in the hands of Gyanendra and
of the army, whilst throughout most of the rest of the country the situation is
best described as anarchy with the local Maoist commanders in the strongestr
position, except when the army chooses to occupy particular points in
strength. It is very difficult to see
how the continuing downward slide can now be stopped without firm action by the
international community – and primarily by India.

For very good reasons, neither the Indians nor any other
outside power want a Maoist takeover in Kathmandu (whether or not India earlier
on colluded with Maoist activities to further strengthen is own position
vis-a-vis the Nepalese government is, of
course, a different issue.) Outside
actors will therefore need to use a combination of carrot and stick to bring
the non-Maoist forces into some kind of alignment so that they can adopt an
agreed negotiating position towards the Maoists whilst building up structures
at village level strong enough to counter (and hopefully later co-opt) the
Maoist ones.

Because of the
central position that the RNA now had in Nepalese politics – thanks, in the
first place to the Maoists and in the second to King Gyanendra – the issue
of who controls it will be the central
one in negotiations both amongst the non-Maoist force and then in peace talks
with the Maoist themselves. For the longer term, it must be answerable to the cabinet, as is normally the case in countries with a
parliamentary system. Assuming that Nepal remains a monarchy (and there must now be
a question-mark over the survival of both the monarchy and also of Nepal itself
as a state with any real independence), there is no reason why the king
should not remain the nominal commander-in-chief but he should act in that
capacity on the government’s advice.
The army needs to be well-equipped and, more importantly, better
trained. Its use for internal security duties should be a last resort but it
should be brought in immediately if protestors or insurgents are strong enough
to drive the police force out of an area. If called upon to act, it should be
able to counter attacks of the kind made on many district headquarters over the
last few years but not to use force out of panic
or vindictiveness against the general population. There need to be clear rules
of engagement, as is the case with, for example, British forces in Northern
Ireland, and individuals would be liable to punishment for failure to comply
with them. As Indian experience has shown, armed force alone has sometimes been
able to contain rebellion, but the agents of a democratic state should abide by
the norms accepted by democracies across the world.

Even
more than the army, the police are poorly equipped, badly trained and
underpaid. Most fundamentally, as has
already been said, they are widely perceived as corrupt and as serving the
immediate political ends of the government (or of whoever has bribed them
sufficiently) rather than addressing the security needs of the society around
them.[50] Arguably, their status as a (highly
inefficient) centralised paramilitary force makes it more difficult for them to
gain public support and the American or British model of separate, locally
recruited forces should perhaps be considered. There could still be some equivalent
of the Indian Central Reserve Police but this would only be used to provide
support in special circumstances and the central government’s main role would
be to set general principles within which each local force had to operate and
to conduct inspections from time to time. There would also be some degree of
supervision by local government but, to guard against factional influence
entering under the guise of `community control’ day-to-day decisions would be
made by the police themselves with reduced scope for political interference.
None of this would entirely remove tensions from the relationship of the police
with some sections of the community but it should be possible to reduce
them.

Opportunities
for playing the patronage game could also be reduced in other areas of
government. To protect the integrity of the electoral process the election
commission’s role could be strengthened, whilst resource distribution – whether
jobs, cash grants or anything else – should as far as possible be allocated according
to predetermined rules. Where the application of objective criteria identifies
a large number of people equally deserving a particular benefit, the use of
some form of lottery could be considered in order to make the final selection.[51] Arrangements such as entrusting each M.P.
with a `pot of gold’ to finance development work should be ended, whilst hiring
and promotion decisions in the bureaucracy might be made by interview boards
from which those holding office at any level in political parties were
excluded. Ministers would retain a say in appointments at the highest level but
not in personnel decisions lower down the bureaucracy.[52]

Confidence
in the system could also be increased by boosting the monitoring role of the
Commission for Investigation of the Abuse of Authority. There is a problem
here, however, of `who monitors the monitors?’ since, as has already been seen,
there have been accusations of political bias in the selection of candidates
for investigation and there are currently fears of greeter potential for abuse
in Gyanendra’s new Royal Commission.[53]. A strict
rule requiring the commission to investigate thoroughly any complaint laid
before it could help here. The possession of wealth out of proportion to one’s
known income is, of course, already grounds for investigation but it could, as
in Hong Kong, also be made an offence in its own right, with the onus on an
individual in public service to explain the source satisfactorily. Legislation
could also be passed requiring parties to declare the source of all donations
from companies and private individuals above a specified level. Unless party political activity is funded
directly by the state, a major proportion of the money needed for fighting
elections must come from the private sector but the electorate do have the
right to know who is giving what to whom.

Since the issue of corruption has been so important in the
delegitimisation both of the Panchayat and of
the post-1990 parliamentary system, it may be worth discussing at some
length the role of the CIAA’s counterpart in Hong Kong, the Independent Commisssion against
Corruption (ICAC). The ICAC’s original
establishment thirty years ago was the result of two main factors. First, a
grassroots campaign against corruption, and particularly over a spectacular
case involving a senior expatriate police official who had been heavily
involved in the `protection’ racket then operated by the police over most of
the territory.[54]
Second, the determination of a new governor, Sir Murray Maclehose, to take a
less relaxed attitude to
endemic corruption than had his predecessors. The colonial system was at this
time unashamedly authoritarian but, despite its failings, still enjoyed a
measure of legitimacy since so many of its inhabitants were grateful to have
escaped the excesses of Maoism in mainland China. However, although the setting
up and empowering of the ICAAC was facilitated by this authoritarian

Whereas
Nepal’s CIAA has focussed mainly on allegations of corruption against senior
politicians and bureaucrats,[55] the
corresponding institution in Hong Kong, the Independent Commission against
Corruption (ICAC) deals with abuses at all levels and
also within the business community.
The initial wave of investigations targeted so many people that police
officers staged a mass protest against it. The Hong Kong government decided to
offer amnesty for all offences committed before the ICAC came into existence,
but, although this initially dented the credibility of the new body, it has
since had considerable success in reducing corruption in all sectors of
society. Whilst
Hong Kong is not as `clean’ as the ICAC’s public relations suggest,
syndicated corruption within the police force seems to have been eliminated and small-scale police corruption is perhaps
less of a problem than in London’s Metropolitan Police.[56]

`Decentralisation’ has long been
a rallying cry in Nepalese politics, figuring both in the rhetoric of the
Panchayat system and in that of present-day Maoists.[57] Because so many who use the slogan have
proved in fact to be avid centralisers a degree of scepticism is quite
understandable, but potentially it presents an opportunity to come closer to
the ideal of direct democracy (the second model discussed above) whilst
retaining pluralist representative democracy (the first model) as the framework
at national level. What is needed is very careful thought on the size and shape
of the smaller units needed and on which issues are best dealt with at which
level. It has been suggested, for example, that devolving power to actual
physical settlements, rather than the arbitrarily delimited Village
Panchayat/Village Development Committees, would allow a degree of ethnic
autonomy on a cantonal basis.[58] Use
of this geographical criterion would reduce the dangers of reinforcing fluid
ethnic boundaries by basing rights directly on ascribed ethnic identity.

At an intermediate level, district boundaries might, as advocated by
Tony Hagen and others, be redrawn to follow ridgelines rather than rivers, thus
producing more economically and socially integrated areas. Real devolution at
this level would also make it easier for parties with strong support within a
small area to implement some of their programmes. If the Italian and French Communist parties
could run local governments whilst Italy and France were allies of the USA in
the Cold War, some form of de facto co-operation between groups with widely
diverse ideologies should not be impossible in Nepal. There area range of
policy issues where there is no real need for a uniform solution across the
country. In many countries, for example, the question whether to allow the
public sale of alcohol is decided by referendum at local level: at least one
brand of American whisky is not sold in the town that houses the distillery
because the local citizens voted to go `dry.’
Similarly, in the field of education, the central government might, for
example, lay down that all schools must teach Nepali, English and one
additional language, and local government, or even individual schools, could
decide whether the third should be Sanskrit, Limbu or, for that matter,
Chinese.[59]

For government at national level, consideration also needs to be given
to changing from the first-past-the-post system employed in India, the USA and the
UK to some form of proportional representation as found in most European
democracies. This issue was raised by the political scientist Chitra Tiwari
during the run-up to the 1991election and found little support,[60] but
interest in it seems to have increased since then, particularly on the Left:
had the 1999 election been held on a PR basis the UML and ML would have
together obtained more seats than Congress.
With Nepal’s unhappy experience during the 1994 hung parliament in mind,
many would still argue that the present system is more likely to produce a
clear-cut result and avoid the need for unstable coalitions. However, the
splits that have occurred in Congress and in the UML (not to mention the
smaller parties) suggest that a single party government is itself an unstable
coalition, though temporarily disguised. Given the electoral arithmetic over
the past twelve years (see Table on pg. 4), single-party governments are
elected with the support of only just over a third of the electorate and, in a
highly polarised political environment, imposing their own policy agenda
through their parliamentary majority may not be practicable. An extreme example
of this knd of problem is provided by the
experience of Chile, where the Marxist President Allende, elected by just 36%
of the voters, was eventually overthrown by the army after his policies had
alienated the centrist forces that had earlier on given him conditional
support. A constitutional system which
forced Allende to make compromises with other parties would have prevented his
adopting some of his own policies but would also have spared the country the
Pinochet dictatorship.

Whatever the merits of moving to full PR, there is also a case for
helping smaller parties by removing the requirement that they must have gained
the support of 3% of the electorate to retain recognition as a national party
at the next election. It may be going to
far to suggest that the Bhattarai faction of the UPF would have stayed within
the electoral system if they had retained such recognition after the 1994
split,[61] but removing the impression that the system
is being rigged in favour of the larger parties would help encourage minorities
to work within the system.

Agreement on changes of the kind outlined above, even if achieved,
would not automatically solve the very fundamental problem of the prevailing
political culture. Again as in other parts of south Asia, Nepalse politics has
been marked by an extreme tendency to factionalism and an unwillingness to
accept arrangements which do not put oneself or one’s own group at the centre
of the picture. The split between the Girija and Deuba factions within the
Nepali Congress is the most conspicuous example but that party had usually
before 2002 been able to avoid going over the brink. The Nepalese Left, on the
other hand, has been subject to so many splits, mergers and re-splits that
probably no one has been able to keep a proper track of them all.[62] In this, as is so many other respects, the
Maoists are a good example of the disease they are purporting to cure. Despite
the fact that a united Left would have been electorally stronger than Congress,
Prachanda and Bhattarai’s faction were unwilling to work as a junior partner
within such a broad alliance. The
justification offered has, of course, been that they alone are the guardians of
the true Leftist faith but one must ask how far that is the real explanation
and how far they were simply unwilling to accept subordination to the UML in a
broad Leftist alliance or alarmed that Nirmal Lama and the old Fourth
Convention group might get the upper hand in the UPF.[63] However even if one grants for the sake of argument that the
Maoists, and Nepalese politicians in general, have been motivated only by
considerations of the national interest, the result has still been an
unwillingness to compromise which would render almost any system unworkable.

As well as a greater willingness to work with those whose ideology is
similar though not identical to one’s own, there could also be greater co-operation
right across the political spectrum on issues where, at least in theory, there
is a general consensus. A prime candidate here is the continuing problem of
caste discrimination. The Deuba administration made a start on this with the
campaign against untouchability mentioned earlier but this, like many of the
grand proposals of summer 2001, has not really been followed up. The refusal to
admit Dalits to ordinary social contact with their fellow-citizens should in
theory be easy to address since it does not involve difficult questions of the
distribution of resources and if the easy part cannot be tackled, what hope is
there for the rest? There is scope for co-operation here involving both the
political parties now on the sidelines of the political stage and the king
presently at the centre. Would it not be possible, for example, for local
leaders of parties to accompany Dalits into previously forbidden shrines and to
repudiate caste taboos by dining publicly with them? When the king attends
`felicitation meetings’ across the country could he not address the question
directly and then ceremonially accept and eat boiled rice from a Dalit in front
of the thousands who have been listening to him?[64]

If those active in politics are to make progress in any of these areas
they will need to be put under a certain amount of pressure. To some extent this is a task for those who
exercise influence on Nepal from outside the country, whether as
representatives of states or of international organisations. For better or worse
they do possess some leverage over those who are, or aspire to be, in authority
inside the country and it is currently hard to see anything other than outside
pressure that can reverse the additional damage done by Gyanendra’s actions in
February 2005. Over the long term,
however, there is a more important role for those in Nepal with a deep interest
in the country’s problems but who are not themselves directly competing for
political power. They may be ordinary members of political parties or simply trying
to promote particular causes and, as Deepak Gyawali argued before temporarily leaving the NGO sector to accept an
appointment as minister in Gyanendra’s 2002-3 cabinet, activism of this
type is needed to balance those engaged in politics primarily because they see
it as their career. If war is too
important to be left to the generals, then politics is certainly too important
to be left to the professionals.[65]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I wish to thank the public figures in Nepal
who have allowed me to interview them over the last few years. I am also
grateful to participants in the Social Science Baha `Agenda for Transformation’
conference for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.

[1] Pre-1997 Hong
Kong is cited by Fareed Zakaria (`The Rise of Illiberal Democracy’, Foreign Affairs, No.76, Nov/Dec 1997,
p.29) to illustrate the difference between freedom and democracy. He interprets
the latter simply as a system of government involving competitive elections
but, while freedom of speech is possible without democracy, democracy is not
possible without a degree of freedom of speech and of political organisation,
without which elections would be meaningless.

[2] Interview with
Baburam Bhattarai,, 8/9/1990. See
Martin Hoftun et al., People, Politics
and Ideology, Kathmandu: Mandala, 1999, p.239. In the context of Nepal, with its
constitutional monarchy and strong influence from the Indian and British
systems, Bhattarai naturally refers to `parliamentary democracy’, but his
argument would apply equally well to a `bourgeois’ democracy with a strong,
executive presidency on French or American lines.

[3] Hence the
argument often made that communist revolutions in the last century represented
in a way a reversion to pre-capitalist structures rather than a transcending of
the limitations of capitalist ones. See, for example, Ernest Gellner, Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and its
Rivals,London: Hamish Hamilton,
1994, p.206.

[4] In the village
panchayat in Ilam studied by Lionel Caplan, candidates were elected unopposed
in every ward in the first elections, local people feeling that contested
elections would `show our quarrels’. The panchayat normally reached decisions
by consensus, with local `notables’ also attending the meeting. But there was
an increasing realisation that a dominant faction could if it wished push
through its own agenda by majority vote and then denounce its opponents as
anti-Pasnchayat if they tried to block its implementation (Caplan, Land and Social Change in Eastern Nepal,
2nd.ed., Kathmandu: HIMAL, 2000, p.159-62}

[6] It is, of course,
conceivable that in particular circumstances a society’s best interests might
be served by one political party’s authoritarian rule, just as they might be
served by colonial rule. The point is simply that such a system should not be
called `democracy.’ Much better is the cheerful honesty of a Cuban communist who, when taxed about the
restrictions on political activity in his homeland, replied, `Sure, Fidel ‘s a
dictator but he’s a good dictator.’

[7] Mainali, broke
away with Bamdev Gautam in 1998 to form the CPN(ML). He refused to follow
Gautam back into the UML in 2002 and has now re-constituted the ML on his own.
For UML views in the aftermath of the janandolan,
see John Whelpton, `The General Elections of May 1991,’ in Michael Hutt (ed.), Nepal in the Nineties, New Delhi:
OUP, 1993, p.55-57. C.P.Mainali’s views are briefly outlined in
Hoftun et al., p.241 and more fully
by Krishna Hachhethu (Party Building in
Nepal: Organization, Leadership and People, Kathmandu: Mandala, 2002,
p.177), who tabulates their points of difference from rival UML positions. Mainali himself confirmed to me two years ago
that he still believes that a ruling communist party should exercise overall
supervision of other permitted parties as currently occurs in China (interview,
Kathmandu, 26/7/2001).,

[8] An
anonymous reviewer of this paper pointed out that `invoking the people’ (i.e
claiming that one’s own decisions are made in
the name of and on behalf of the people) is a rhetorical exercise common
across the political spectrum and cannot therefore be regarded as a distinct
`model’ of democracy or linked specifically with the Left. However, whilst it
is certainly true (as already pointed
out in the main text) that this
concept of `democracy’ is a flawed one, the concept does appear to have a
particularly strong hold on a section of the Left. The ascription of agency to
classes rather than to individuals in some varieties of Marxist theory makes it easier to slip into this way of thinking and rule by the people
in this abstract sense is surely the only meaning that can be ascribed to the
word `democratic’ in the names of former East European communist regimes such
as the German Democratic Republic – such
states were very clearly not democratic in either the pluralist or the `direct
democracy’ sense.

[11] General election
figures are the official ones for percentages of total valid votes cast as
tabulated by Karl-Heinz-Krämer. For fuller discussions of the three general
elections see Whelpton, `General Election of May 1991,’ Hoftun et al.,
p.200-207 and John Whelpton, `Nine years on: the 1999 election and Nepalese
politics since the 1990 janan­dolan.'
European Bulletin of Himalayan Research,
no.17, 1999. p.1-39, but note that vote percentages are calculated there on the
basis of total valid and invalid votes cast and so differ slightly from those
used here. The May 1991 sample survey was carried out by the Political Science
Association of Nepal to coincide with the election (see Ole Borre et al., Nepalese Political Bahaviour, New
Delhi: Sterling, 1994, p.169) The 1999
sample figures are from the ORG-HIMAL poll as reported in Spotlight , 23/5/1999

[12] Even
after the more stringent censorship imposed after Gyanendra’s complete takeover on 1 February
2005, these and some other publications continued to test the limits and
printed implict criticism of the royal move.

[13] For a highly critical view, see Saubhagya Shah, `Development critique –
From evil state to civil society’ HIMAL
November 2002, p.10-17 and a more sympathetic one, Celayne Heaton Shrestha, `NGOs as thekadars or sevaks: identity crisis in Nepal’s non- governmental sector’ European Bulletin of Himalayan Research. No.22:
5-36, 2002. Whilst stressing the primacy
of politcal action, many Leftists accept that these
organisations have a contribution to make. See for example, Bishwakarma,
Hira, `Dalit Andolanma ENJIOharuko
Bhumika’ (esp. p.356-8) and Bishwakarma, Padmalal. `Kina Uthna Sakena
Ekikrit Dalit Andolan?’ (p.311) in Onta et al. (eds.), Chapama
Dalit, Kathmandu: Ekta Books, 2001/02. In
contrast, the Maoists generally see NGOs as a diversion into reformism
of popular energy that should be fuelling the class struggle and reacted with
great hostility the more nuanced views of Marxist critic Khagendra Sangraula in
his novel Junkiriko Sangit , Kathmandu: Bundi-Puran Prakashan, 1999 (see
Pratyoush Onta, `Democracy and Duplicity’, in M.Hutt (ed.), Himalayan `People’s War’, London: Hurst,
2004.)

[14] For
differing perspectives on BASE’s role, see Fujikura (2001), Gisèle Krauskopff,
`An `Indigenous Minority in a Border Area; Tharu Ethnic asociations, NGOs and the Nepalese
state’, in David Gellner (ed.), Resistance
and the State: Nepalese Experiences, New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2003, and also Guneratne, Arjun, 2002. Many tongues, one people: the making of
Tharu identity in Nepal. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press.

[17] Deerapk Thapa,,
`Day of the Maoist’, Himal, May 2001,
p.4-21; Mary DesChene, `“Black Laws” and the “limited rights” of the people in
post-andolan Nepal: the campaign against the proposed anti-Terrorist Act of
2054 V.S.’ Himalayan Research Bulletin, 18(2): 41-67, 1998; interview with
Ramesh Nath Pande, 25/7/01.

[18] Even
the 1950-51 anti-Rana movement, which first introduced multi-party democracy to
Nepal. was said by a 1951 British embassy internal report t to have probably
depended on the services of `out of work
“goondas” from Calcutta’ (see Hoftun et
al., p.18).

[20] For
interpretations on these lines, as opposed to social contract theories, see,
for example, chapter 14 (`From egalitarianism to kleptocracy’) of Jared
Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel: the
Fates of Human Societies (New York: Norton, 1998) and Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making
as Organized Crime,” in Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer &
Theda Skocpol, (eds.) Bringing the State
Back In, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 169-91.

[24] Minendra Rijal,
.then an advisor to Sher Bahadur Deuba and .later a member of the Planning
Commission, confirmed in an interview in August 2002 that this was one of the
reasons for the state’s lack of accurate intelligence on the Maoist insurgency.

[25] After the
ceasefire earlier this year the Maoists were reported to be trying to further
expand their armed forces by telling potential recruits they would be assured
later of a job in the national army.
This view of the Maoists was expressed by one of Manjusree Thapa’s
informants on a recent trip to Jumla: ` Only 15 to 20 percent of their workers
are ideologically motivated. The rest are jobless kids who wouldn’t be
given money if they asked for it from
their parents. So they join the party, and extort from us with their guns.’
(`Peace Bridge’, Nepali Times 4/4/03).

[26] For a
brief discussion of the growth of corruption
before 1990, see John Whelpton, A
History of Nepal, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p.178

[27] See Sara
Shneiderman & Mark Turin, `The Path to Jansarkar in Dolakha: Towards an
Ethnography of the Maoist Movement’ (paper presented at the November 2001 SOAS
conference on the Maoist movement) for characterisation of the police on these
lines among the Thangmi ethnic group, who had been particularly receptive to
Maoist approaches

[28] The government in
1997 was actually a coalition headed by the NDP’s Lok Bahadur Chand but the UML
provided its largest block of supporters and, crucially, Bam Gautam was in
charge of the Home Ministry.

[29] See, for example
the analysis by. Shyam Shrestha, (member of the Unity Centre central
leadership) `Ke Maobadiharu Pherieka chhan?’
Himal KP14 March 2001, and, more recently, Pushkar Gautam, `Shakti Puja ra
Prachandapath’, Himal KP 15/3/03. In
the aftermath of the October 1917 revolution, elections to a constituent
assembly did indeed go against the Bolsheviks and were set aside by them. See
also Shiva Gaunle, `Bicharo Sambidhansabha’, Himal KP, 17/1//02: for the argument that a constituent assembly in
an country is more likely to ratify changes already made than to initiate them.

[30] Krishna
Hachhethu, Party Building in Nepal ,
p.210, argues that the unexpectedly poor
performance of the ex-pancha parties in the 1991 elections stemmed precisely
from the fact that Congress and the UML were now seen as the dominant forces.

[31] The old argument
against acceptance was put explicitly by Raghu Pant at the UML Convention
earlier this year when he said agreeing to a constituent assembly `would look
like the UML going the Maoists’ way’ (Kathmandu
Post –internet edition, 3 February 2003).

[32] This
was reflected, for example, in the electoral success of Yadavs, a dominant
caste in some Tarai district and also the 1986 defeat of Harka Gurung, a solah
jat Gurung who failed to retain char jat
support.

[33] Harka
Gurung’s career as Vice-Chairman of the Planning Commission reflected King Birendra’s appreciation of his academioc
achievements but, like the appointment of the Dalit Hiralal Bishwakarma as an
assistant minister, was also probably intended to project a more inclusive
image..

[35]
`Reservations’ has normally been understood as quotas in education and in
public sector employment. There are now demands for the concept to be extended
to the private sector (see for example Padmalal Bishwakarma, `Dalitlai arakshan
kina ra kasari?’, Onta et al. (ed.), Chapama
Dalit, p363. ) Legislation extending reservations to private sector
organisations was enacted in the Indian state of Maharastra.in January 2004
though it has yet to be implemented.

[37] There was one
Dalit (a Damai) among the 202 members of the 1991 House of Representatives. The
Dalit proportion in the total population is disputed. A figure of 20% is often
quoted by activists (and was used in 2003 in a speech by a government minister,
Narayan Singh Pun). However, the 1991 census reported a figure of 16.9% and
that of 2001 only 13.3%, presumably because of Dalits adopting surnames of
higher castes (see Baburam Bishwakarma, `Kasari ghatyo dalitko sankhya?’, Himal KP 30/3/03, p.42). Members of hill
janajatis, who are around 26% of
Nepal’s total population, accounted for 22% of House membership in 1991 and 18%
in 1994, whilst for Tarai ethnic groups, 9% of the population, the
corresponding figures are 8% and 6% (data from the 2001 census and from Harka
Gurung, Nepal; Social Demography and
Expressions, Kathmandu: New ERA, 1998,p.149).

[38] See Padmalal
Bishwakarma,. `Kina uthna Sakena Ekikrit Ddalit Andolan’, in Onta et al.,Chhapama Dalit, Kathmandu: Ekta Books,
2001-2, and Dilli Raman Dahal, this volume. In Dhorpatan, Bishwakarmas
apparently continue to claim a higher caste status and this is accepted by
local Tibetans but not by the upper castes (Colin Millard, `Democracy and
Dissent in Nepal: an Overview with some Perceptions from the Valley of
Dhorpatan’ , in David Gellner (ed.), Resistance and the State: Nepalese
Experiences, New Delhi: Social
Science Press, 2003.)

[39] Padmalal.Bishwakarma. `Kina uthna Sakena…, p.305-8. Amongst
some Dalits activists this process went so far that separate factions emerged
aligned with the three members of the Congress troika.

[40] Figure calculated
from 1991 census data by Harka Gurung (`Trident and Thunderbolt: Culture
Dynamics in Nepalese Politics’, Mahesh Chandra Regmi Lecture delivered at
Social Science Baha conference, 24/5/2004, Table 7). The name Dom, also used in
the Indian Himalaya west of the Mahakali,
may possibly be cognate with Roma,
the name used for themselves by the Gypsies, who emigrated from India in the
Mioddle Ages (George van Driem, Languages
of the Himalayas: an Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Himalayan Region. Leiden:
Brill, 2001, p. 1101).. Whether the Doms are the descendants of a pre-Parbatiya
population or emerged by internal differentiation within the Parbatiyas, they
are certainly regarded by other Nepalis as Parbatiya and Hindu.

[41]Himal KP 16/11/01. The report gives the
example of a temple in Doti which was closed to all but the temple priests in
order to avoid having to admit the Doms.

[42] A
survey in 2053 (1998/9) showed that between
65% and 86% of Dalits are below
the poverty line, making them worse off than any other group except the Limbus
(Padmalal Bishwakarma, `Dalitlai Arakshan Kina ra Kasari’, p.360).

[43] This
probably remains true today (March 2005) although there are signs of friction
between the Maoist central leadership and ethnic activists who have up till now
been aligned with them.

[44] One of the army’s
problems is reportedly the lack of counselling to deal with this situation. In
areas of the hills where Maoist dominance is particularly strong (perhaps about
40% of the country on an estimate from one Western-INGO worker with extensive
experience in the central hills) they may forcibly recruit brothers or sisters
of army personnel in addition (or as an alternative) to forcing army families
out of the area.

[45] It is
arguable that, without wholesale replacement of the officer corps an a radical
change in its ethos, this would have happened even if the constitution had put
the army formally under government control..
Civilian heads of government cannot always depend on the loyalty of
generals they themselves have appointed, as graphically demonstrated by Pinochet’s overthrow of Allende in Chile and Zia’s of Bhutto in Pakistan.

[48] Genevieve Lakier,
‘Public spectacle and political power: the bandh
and democracy in Nepal’, this volume.

[49] Mahendra Lawoti’s
Towards a Democratic Nepal: Inclusive
Political Institutions for a Multicultural Society (Kathmandu: Mandala
Bookpoint/New Delhi: Sage)came into my hands too late to be properly utilised in revising this paper. It includes
detailed discssion and recommendation on many of the issues here very briefly
discussed.

[50] The problem is,
of course, a long-standing one in South Asia.
Writing at the beginning of the last century, Rudyard Kipling had one of his Indian characters characterise
the police as `thieves and extortioners…but at least they do not suffer any
rivals’ (Kim, London: Pan Books, 1967
[1901], p.67). Such sentiments would probably be echoed throughout the region
today.

[51] This method is
currently used in Hong Kong to allocate purchase rights for
government-subsidised `Home Ownership’ flats. Drawing lots was an established
method of allocating certain public offices under the Athenian democracy in
ancient Greece.

[52] Well-established
democracies differ in the extent to which the civil service is insulated from
the effects of party politics. Political appointments are a more important
feature of the American than of the U.K. bureaucracy though even in America the
vast majority of appointments are non-political.

[54] Superintendent
John Godber fled Hong Kong when confronted with
evidence that he had accummulated bank balances many times greater than his
official salar. far beyond his means. Securing his extradition from Britain
(where possession of assets disproportionate to one’s known means was not a
criminal offence) was an early ICAC success – though some have claimed that it
was achieved by fabricating evidence of another, extraditable offence.

[55]
Bharatraj Upreti (`Sanketkalin Shasanka Chunauti’, Himal Khavar Patrika, 12/2/05) argues that corruption involving
businessmen has not yet been addressed in Nepal and that doing so is central to
the control of corruption in general.

[56] Nigel
Cameron, An Illustrated History of Hong
Kong. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1991, p.319. Before the book’s publication, I was offered
the same comparison by a serving British inspector in the Hong Kong police, who
acknowledged the earlier extent of corruption but had no doubt that his force
was now `cleaner than the Met’. There has, however, been a suggestion that the
sudden decline at the end of the 1980s
in quantities of drugs seized and in drug-related offences could indicate
collusion with drug dealers (Frank Welsh, A
History of Hong Kong, London: HarperCollins, 1993, p.493.).

[57] The Panchayat
system primarily depended on the monarchy and its control of the army. The
Maoists have developed a very effective network of sympathisers at local level
but the main pillar of their present influence is a trained guerilla force
which, like the RNA, combines people from different regions and ethnic
backgrounds and can be switched as needed from area to area.

[58] As advocated, for
example by Pashuram Tamang, `Address of Welcome at a Ceremony Organised by the
Nepal Janajati Mahasangh in Honour of Ethnic Community Members of Parliament’,
1991.

[61] A view advanced
both by Deepak Gyawali, `Reflecting on contemprary Neapli angst’Himal, April 2002 , p.37=39 and Deepak
Thapa, `Day of the Maoist’, Himal,
May 2001, p.4-21. Gyawali also argues specifically against the 3% rule.
Bhattarai’s faction of the UPF were denied national party status since Vaidya
and his followers were accepted by the
Election Commision as the legitimate successor of the pre-division party. This
decision was reversed by the Supreme Court in summer 1997.

[62] The complexity is
most fully illustrated by the fold-out diagram in Bhim Rawal , Nepalma Samyabadi Andolan:Udbhav ra Bikas , Kathmandu: Pairavi
Prakashan, 2047 V.S. (1990/91). A simplified diagram, covering the period up to
1995, is given in Hoftun et al.,
p.392.

[63] Pancha Maharjan
(personal communication) has suggested that apprehension over Lama’s growing
popularity was a major reason behind the 1994 split.

[64] I was told by one
participant in the Kathmandu conference that the king already does sometimes
interact publicly with Dalits in ways not allowed under the traditional rules.
However, this has clearly not been adequately emphasised and publicised.